Jeffrey A. Friedman, "The Commander-in-Chief Test: Public Opinion and the Politics of Image-Making in US Foreign Policy" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Americans frequently criticize US foreign policy for being overly costly and excessively militaristic. With its rising defense budgets and open-ended "forever wars," US foreign policy often appears di...
14 Jan 202440min
Matthew Levitt, "Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad" (Yale UP, 2008)
The world is reeling from the savage terror attack that brutalized, raped, murdered and kidnapped Israelis and civilians from at least 25 other countries, continuing to hold many of them hostage – and...
14 Jan 202436min
Yaroslav Trofimov, "Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence" (Penguin, 2023)
Since February 2022, a string of books have been published about the war in Ukraine but, for the most part, these have been histories and political studies. Only now are the “first drafts of history” ...
9 Jan 202443min
Paul F. Diehl et al., "When Peacekeeping Missions Collide: Balancing Multiple Roles in Peace Operations" (Oxford UP, 2023)
The contemporary world is beset with a wide variety of conflicts, all of which have features without historical precedent. While most accounts of peacekeeping focus on attempts to limit violent confli...
8 Jan 20241h 10min
Bryan Mark Rigg, "The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers: Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and His Astonishing Rescue" (UP of Kansas, 2016)
When Hitler invaded Warsaw in the fall of 1939, hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped in the besieged city. The Rebbe Joseph Schneersohn, the leader of the ultra-orthodox Lubavitcher Jews, w...
7 Jan 202455min
Colin Jones, "The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris" (Oxford UP, 2021)
The day of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) is universally acknowledged as a major turning-point in the history of the French Revolution. At 12.00 midnight, Maximilien Robespierre, the most prominent member...
5 Jan 202456min
Genealogies of Modernity Episode 7: A Genealogy of Gun Violence
The problem of gun violence is as old as guns themselves. According to historian Priya Satia, America’s present epidemic of gun violence has its roots in the industrial revolution. Satia tells the sto...
28 Dec 202351min
Elena Schneider, "The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade and Slavery in the Atlantic World" (UNC Press, 2018)
Histories of the British occupation of Havana in 1762 have focused on imperial rivalries and the actions and decisions of European planters, colonial officials, and military officers. In her stunning ...
27 Dec 202350min
